Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of my blog. Today I have decided to do a little retrospective of the year, in photos. As those who have been with me from day one might recall, I didn’t know how to load photos onto the blog in the beginning, so I wrote these rather long-winded entries and was in danger of running out of stuff to write about by week two. Thankfully, I learned how to load the photos and the blog has survived! Here are some of my favorite blog moments in pictures.
Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
Poor Visibility
March 30, 2009 by 19 Comments
I was stranded, with my fellow JetBlue passengers, on a tarmac in DC last night because all the New York airports were closed due to heavy fog. I was on my way back from Florida where I had gone with my sister to visit my father and his lovely wife Terry. My sister Meg took a different flight back to Boston. My flight was supposed to land in NY at 7:00 but at 7:45 we were still flying.
Mt. Redoubt
March 27, 2009 by 13 Comments
I’m going to be away from my computer for the weekend, so am leaving you with some beautiful photos sent to me from Kathie, our blog friend from Alaska.
Here’s what she had to say about them:
“Hi Ann, I thought you would enjoy a couple pics of the infamous Mt. Redoubt….
It has a pattern of erupting every 20 yrs…It blew last in 1989/90 and was it a mess, so far this time, the ash seems to be floating in other directions, thank goodness…
The Mt is 50 miles away across the Cook Inlet from my house but we can see it very clearly from certain streets here in Soldotna…
Enjoy!!”
Thanks Kathie. They’re wonderful.
License and Registration Please
March 26, 2009 by 5 Comments
I drove up to feed the horses when I arrived home today but encountered a roadblock. Snoopy had let himself out (again) and decided to stop and inspect all cars approaching the barn.
I should open the farm up as some kind of wild animal theme park. People can drive through and feed the animals from the car. They can watch all sorts of hunting and stalking behavior between the canine and squirrel species. Maybe I can teach one of our many animals a trick. Nobody here knows any tricks. They let themselves in and out as they please and demand their meals be delivered in a timely fashion, but won’t offer up a paw or a whinny on command. We work and slave to feed all these animals and not one will perform a simple trick. Well, that’ll have to change once we start charging admission.
Waiting for Walt
March 26, 2009 by 14 Comments
If you don’t like poems, or sex, read no further.
A Woman Waits for Me
by Walt Whitman
Denis’s Bodyguard
March 24, 2009 by 24 Comments
Guadalupe just sent me a link to some very old photos she found of Denis and me on the web. I have to share this one.
It looks like I was midway through my sex change from man to woman. You’d think Denis might have suggested something with sleeves to cover those Popeye arms. I swear, I never took steroids. It was from pushing a double stroller with those kids – at that age – up the steepest hill you can imagine at Riverside Park in Manhattan every day. I was always too impatient to let the kids walk, because their little legs didn’t move as fast as mine, so I pushed them and their friends around the city in a stroller until they were quite big. I think if we hadn’t moved to the country, I’d still be trotting them around town in some sort of rickshaw. You get some serious biceps and shoulders from all that pushing.
Mod Hair Ken
March 23, 2009 by 17 Comments
I found another great vintage commercial. This one is about “Quick Curl Barbie and Mod Hair Ken.” My dad actually sported Mod Hair Ken’s look in the 70′s – he even had the mustache for a while. No, he’s not gay. I swear.
It took me a while to figure out why the narrator’s voice sounds so familiar. I think it’s Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s voice. Huh? Am I right?
Doggy Blog
March 22, 2009 by 21 Comments
Denis and I posed for the cover of American Dog Magazine and the photographer, Heather Green, took some great photos. I think the mag comes out soon. I can’t figure out how to load the cover photo, but here are some shots that didn’t make it into the mag. First, me and my beloved Daphne. She’s actually alive, just dozing with her eyes open. Also wish I could photoshop the breakfast stains from her beard. Sigh.
And the pack:
Finally, himself, with the elf:
Sorry about the size of these photos. Having a hard time figuring out how to adjust from jpegs that Heather sent.
Writing and Publishing
March 21, 2009 by 4 Comments
We’re home now but I had so much fun touring schools and especially visiting Boston, my old home.
Yesterday, I was a member of a Q&A panel about writing and publishing. It was a part of a career symposium at Emerson College. The best thing about it was meeting two fantastic women and fellow authors. I flatter myself by calling them my fellows, as they are somewhat (okay, a lot) more accomplished as authors than I am. But they were great fun and lovely and I really enjoyed our discussion.
Turndown Wisdom
March 20, 2009 by 6 Comments
At our very swanky hotel, the housekeepers place a card with a quotation on the guests’ pillows during the “turndown service.” That phrase has always struck me as odd. “Would you like turndown service?” a pretty young woman will ask, after rousing me out of bed (I go to bed too early for some hotels).
“No thanks, I don’t need to be turned down tonight.”
Anyway, the quote awaiting me on my pillow last night was, “A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another’s.” Jean Paul Richter
